


for what your hands have done

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4791971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is hiding Jemma from Death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for what your hands have done

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of my [mistress of death verse](http://shineyma.tumblr.com/tagged/verse%3A-mistress-of-death/chrono), and is in response to a prompt that will be posted at the end, so as not to spoil anything.
> 
> Title from Icon for Hire's _Only a Memory_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Death is in Japan, tending to the souls of the victims of a massive riot, when he feels it: a cry for help, echoing across the expanse of his Power.

Jemma.

He forgets the souls at once in favor of reaching out across the thread that connects them, and feels—

Nothing.

No. Not nothing. He feels many things: desperation, terror, pain— _deep_ pain, the kind of agony that can only come from torture spells, and when he lays hands on whoever dares to turn such magic against Jemma they will learn the _true meaning_ of his Name—

But he doesn’t feel Jemma. He can sense her emotions, but not _her_. She could be in the next room and he would never know it.

It’s impossible.

He stands, intending to summon his Angels, but hasn't the chance. They appear uncalled—in _droves_. In seconds, the street is full of them, more Angels than have been gathered in one place since the destruction of Moscow.

“Death,” Hannah says, grim-faced. “The Lady’s spells—”

“She’s in pain,” he snarls, and she falls silent.

Akela, braver and less cautious, takes up for her. “We tried to go to her when the spells activated. We can’t find her.”

“We can’t reach Kara,” Amira adds.

Death stills. Kara is the Angel assigned to guard Jemma, at least for this month. The Power connecting his Angels is stronger even than the power connecting him to Jemma; that they can’t reach her through it…only death can prevent such.

But he would know if Kara were dead.

He reaches out himself, down the eternal bond that connects him to his Assistants. Kara is there, barely, but just as with Jemma, he can’t feel her location, just her emotional state. Frustration, rage, a rising need for vengeance—but no pain.

“She’s alive,” he tells them, and they relax not at all. “I can’t reach her, either.” He tries again for Jemma, whose cries continue to echo in his chest, reverberating against his ribcage like the beating of a human heart, and feels… “Wait.”

The air around them thrums, vibrating in time with his Angels’ anticipation as they prepare to act upon the pure fury in his voice.

There’s something there. An edge of something, a spark of the smallest Power—

She’s being _hidden_.

“Wards,” he realizes, and the twenty-three trees placed at even intervals along the sidewalk die as his control slips.

It’s been millennia since he’s felt these—anti-Death wards. He thought them lost to the ages, the knowledge dying with the last man who presumed to turn them against him.

That man—the man who dared to try to hide from Death—is still suffering his punishment. A punishment which does not fall within Death’s domain—he tends to the souls, he cares nothing for what happens when he’s done with them—but in this case, he’ll make an exception.

As soon as he finds Jemma, whoever has taken her will join the man Whitehall in his suffering, and that suffering will increase tenfold.

He reaches out again, tests the edge of the wards. Strong ones, to block even this, the bit of his Power that Jemma holds, but still nothing more than an irritant to one with the power of Death.

“Call to Kara,” he orders the Angels. “All of you.”

They obey, and he traces the Power along their connection, adding his own to it and hurling all of his strength at the barrier of the wards. They shudder, bend—and then shatter.

This time, when he reaches out to Jemma, he senses her properly. He’s enraged to realize just how much the wards were blocking from him; with the barrier gone, he can feel the true measure of her pain. She’s being torn apart and pieced back together, inch by spiritual inch—the kind of pain that can drive a mortal to madness.

A single Thought takes him to her side.

He spares barely a fraction of a second to take in the scene. Jemma is restrained in the middle of a Power circle, face tearstained and mouth open in a silent scream, lines of blue magic spreading like circuits from her eyes. Her captors are four plainly suicidal men, one in each corner, all bearing the dusty, unwieldy kind of spell books that fell out of fashion centuries ago. And Kara is unharmed, penned in a small ward, throwing herself at the barrier as though she can break past it through physical force alone.

He gestures. The four men fly off their feet to hang suspended in the air; it breaks their concentration, and the spells upon Jemma cease at once, leaving her to slump against her bonds, mercifully unconscious. The ward around Kara disappears, and she stumbles forward, surprised.

“Death,” she gasps. Her fingers twitch, tremble—his Angels have their own type of fury-driven magic, and she fights to control hers now.

“Don’t touch them,” he orders, even as he kneels before Jemma. A single look unwinds the ropes binding her, and she falls forward, out of her chair and into his arms. He cradles her in his lap and lays his hand across her forehead, sending tendrils of his Power through her veins to chase away the last remnants of the torture spells. “I’ll deal with them in—”

Kara straightens as he stops mid-sentence. “Death?”

“Those weren’t torture spells,” he says, puzzled. He closes his eyes, focusing on the little cobwebs of Power spread across Jemma’s soul. Tiny fragments of what would have, if not for his interruption, been a great binding.

No. That’s not it.

“An unbinding,” Kara offers, voice grim, and he opens his eyes to look up at her. She crouches in front him, one hand hovering over Jemma’s face, and scowls. “They’re Death worshippers. They wanted to break the Lady’s _control_ over you.”

Ice cold fury rises in his chest. His fingers itch with the urge to rip to fragments the men still hovering in the air above them.

Instead, he focuses on Jemma, on sending more of his Power along the thread that connects them. There are cracks, he can See that now, fractures along the edge of her soul. It’s no wonder he mistook what was happening to her for torture spells; for a mortal, even one such fracture would be excruciating. She has six.

“Jemma has no control over me,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on her face as he smooths over the cracks in her soul. “To try and break a binding that isn’t present…”

If their wards had been stronger—if he hadn’t gotten here in time—they would have done worse than kill her. They could have _unmade_ her.

“I tried to stop them,” Kara says, quiet and ashamed. “They bound me in place.” She bows her head. “I failed you. Forgive me.”

His wrath is not for her. Even he was given pause by the wards; a single Angel, alone and unsuspecting, had no hope of defeating them. It would have taken four to break through—from now on, Jemma will have at least five guarding her at all times.

But Kara is deeply loyal and has never failed him before. To excuse her without comment would only add to her guilt.

“Go to the Old Gods,” he orders, brushing his fingers over Jemma’s cheek. The lines around her eyes are beginning to fade as his Power takes hold, easing her pain and her restless spirit, but he won't soon forget (or forgive) the sight of them. “Tell them I claim these four for myself.”

It won’t be a pleasant conversation; the Old Gods disdain his love for Jemma and resent his Power over them, and for him to trespass in their domain will help nothing.

Yet Kara shows no reluctance as she stands. “I will, at once. And then?”

“And then go to your sisters,” he says. “They worry. Ease their concern and see to the souls left abandoned in Japan. I have no time for them today.”

“Death…” She hesitates, obviously dissatisfied with so light a punishment, and he quirks an eyebrow at her. She bows. “As you say.”

She disappears, and he returns his attention to Jemma.

She’s stirring. He presses his hand to her heart, laying a spell for the killing of pain over her. Spells meant for the living—for healing—aren’t his area of expertise, but he can manage this well enough.

She wakes as the spell settles over her, blinking cloudy eyes open to smile dreamily at him.

“You’re here,” she says, slurring a little. She lifts a hand and clumsily pats his wrist, trying and failing to wrap her fingers around it. She blinks slowly. “Am I flying?”

“No.” He turns his hand to catch hers and weaves their fingers together. The confusion on her face does nothing for his rage; only the very strongest of pain-killing spells cloud the mind, and that she was hurt badly enough to need one—

He experiences a sudden surge of sympathy for the berserkers of old; never has he struggled with his temper like this. If he doesn’t get it under control, his Power will slip from his grasp again—and this time, it will be more than just trees that die. They’re in a major city center; thousands of mortals will fall before his Power, and it will only upset Jemma.

“You know,” he says, and smooths her hair out of her face with his free hand, “this wouldn’t keep happening if you’d just agree to marry me.”

He’s hoping to make her smile with the decades-old joke; instead, her brow furrows in distress.

“Noooooooo,” she says, and from the way she draws the word out, he thinks she forgets for a second what she’s saying in the middle of it. “I can’t marry you.”

“Let me guess,” he says. “Not until you finish your degree.”

“No,” she repeats mournfully. “Not ever.”

He blinks. That’s not the answer he was expecting; she’s refused his every proposal, but always in the form of a delay, not an outright rejection. At this point, it’s a running joke—she’s certainly never before sounded so sad while refusing him.

“Why not?” he asks.

She reaches for his face with her free hand and, though she misses twice, eventually manages to cup his cheek.

“You’re not human,” she informs him solemnly, and he frowns.

She’s always known that he’s not human. He never hid the truth of what he was from her—made it as obvious as possible, in fact, considering the manner of their courtship. The idea that the truth of his Being would keep her from marrying him, but not from spending decades as his lover, makes little sense.

But then, she’s not in her right mind. Whether she’s lost in delirium or simply failing to properly communicate her meaning, this is hardly the time to press the issue. (And he _will_ be pressing the issue.)

“Forgive me,” he says, lifting their clasped hands to kiss the back of hers. “This isn’t the moment.”

“Welcome,” she says, patting his cheek. Then she frowns. “No. Wait. That’s not right.”

He smiles, smoothing his free hand over her hair once more. Though it infuriates him that she’s in need of such a spell, he won’t deny that he’s charmed by her demeanor under it. She is, as ever, adorable.

“Sleep, Jemma,” he says. “We’ll be home soon.”

She’ll feel better once they’re in his realm; created and maintained by his Power as it is, everything about it—breathing the air, touching the furniture, lying under the blanket on their bed—will enhance the pain-killing spell, and their connection means that being surrounded by his Power will aid in her healing.

He’ll get her there as soon as possible. There’s just the slight matter of punishment to see to first.

But that will have to wait until the Old Gods release these soon to be incredibly sorry mortals to him, and in the meantime, Jemma looks suddenly distressed. Her hand falls away from his face as she twists in his lap, trying to look around the room, and if not for the restraining arm he wraps around her, she may well have fallen.

“Jemma?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

“Kara,” she frets, “where’s Kara?”

Ah. He should have guessed she would worry over Kara. Jemma has a soft heart—it’s one of the things he loves most about her—and she’s especially fond of his Angels.

“She’s fine,” he soothes, guiding her to relax against him again. “She isn’t hurt. I sent her on an errand.”

“Oh,” Jemma says, the sudden burst of energy leaving her just as quickly as it came on, “good.” Her free hand fists in his shirt, and there’s something almost child-like about her grip. “She tried to protect me.”

“I know she did,” he says. “It’s all right. Sleep.”

“They hurt me,” she says, voice small and wounded—so very unlike her. “I couldn’t—”

She flounders, her mortal vocabulary providing no words to describe the sheer _scope_ of the pain she felt. It’s not likely she would be able to find them anyway, not with her mind so clouded, but he knows well it isn’t his spell that leaves her so lost.

“I know,” he says gently; the way her struggle to explain is upsetting her is doing nothing for his temper. “But you’re okay now. You’ll be fine.”

She cuddles in close to him. The spell—to say nothing of the pain she suffered—has left her exhausted, and her eyes are barely open.

“You saved me,” she says, and then reaches across their bond to him.

It’s likely unintentional—a reflexive substitute to speech, which is clearly difficult at the moment—because what she communicates is mostly unformed. It’s a tangle of gratitude and love and lingering fear, and the lack of intent makes it no less meaningful. In fact, it makes it moreso.

“I love you, too,” he says, kissing her hand again. “Now sleep.”

Finally, she does, and he sends calming thoughts along the thread of their connection as he feels the storm brewing in her mind. And then, comfort seen to, he allows himself to loosen a little of his grip on his temper.

He raises his eyes to view her torturers—vile mortals that they are, there are no words, no _insults_ that can properly convey his wrath, and so he doesn’t bother to try; torturers does well enough. They attempt, through the barrier of silence he set around them without conscious thought, to plead with him, to beg his mercy, and he scoffs.

“I have none,” he tells them.

He could say more, expound upon their idiocy, upon the death wish they so clearly displayed in taking and harming Jemma, but he doesn’t. They will have eternity to ponder their mistakes, to understand where they went wrong, and that lesson will sink in well enough without his help.

Finally, he Feels what he’s been waiting for, the sudden transfer of ownership over their souls, and smiles to himself. The Old Gods have surrendered their claim; Jemma’s torturers are Death's, for him to do with what he Wills.

And what he Wills is punishment.

It takes only the slightest Thought to flay the skin from their bones—and even less of one to ensure that for them, the experience is much slower than it actually is. It will seem, to them, to take hours to die, as every inch of flesh is slowly, agonizingly drawn away.

What he does next takes much more concentration—and quite a bit more Power. He’s going against Nature, here, against the very reason for his Being, and it’s not at all a simple task.

But he’s resolved that these four must pay for the harm they did Jemma—for how close they came to unmaking her—and so he gathers his strength and he traps them here, in this room, in this _moment_.

The four of them will spend the rest of eternity here, denied the comfort of the Afterlife. Mortal souls aren’t meant to linger in this realm past their deaths, and they’ll suffer for it—though not nearly so much as they’ll suffer for the fact that they’ll spend all of eternity reliving their deaths, feeling their flesh slowly peeling away. Each time will feel as the first; they will neither grow accustomed to it nor learn to brace themselves against it. The pain will never lessen.

There are worse punishments of which he can conceive, of course, but this is the best he can do on short notice, and Jemma needs his care. He won’t prioritize her torturers over her; they’ve been seen to, and now he can forget them.

They’ll spend the rest of eternity in torment. It will have to do.

He adjusts his hold on Jemma, drawing her closer to his chest, and Moves them home.

They arrive, as he intends, on their bed, and he shifts her out of his lap to lay flat on the mattress, instead. Already the furrow of her brow is smoothing away as the presence of so much of his Power boosts his spell, easing her pain and letting her fall deeper into sleep.

He runs his knuckles down her cheek as he Looks into her, judging the remaining damage to her soul, and is relieved to find it as he suspected. She’ll sleep for a day or two, be weak for a few days more, but in the end, she’ll be fine.

“Sleep well, my love,” he murmurs, bending to kiss her softly before he stands. “May it be peaceful and sweet.”

More than just a benediction, it’s also a spell; her subconscious won’t torment her with memories of what she’s just suffered. She’ll have to face it eventually, but it won’t be now, while she’s fractured and vulnerable. Mental healing can wait.

And only once she’s well again—in mind _and_ soul _and_ body—will he address the issue of her refusal to marry him. It seems there’s more to it than he thought, and he won’t allow her to avoid the issue any longer.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt:
> 
> Anonymous: I'm honestly a little scared to ask for this, but I would love something from your Mistress of Death series where Ward either realizes Jemma has no intention of marrying him, or she's decided it's time to leave him. (Because I love this universe, and I especially love your writing when it makes my heart pound and my stomach twist from the angst, drama, and possessive Ward-ness, but I can't stop reading and hoping for a happy ending)


End file.
